Totally indulging in this side discussion: I remember thinking in high school and college that fame was the end-all of life, telling people that my goal was to have my own Wikipedia page. I saw it as something like the combination of being a "cool kid" (but for, you know, the whole of society instead of just one's school) and a sort of immortality.
Anyway, over the last couple of decades as an adult, besides realizing the obvious - how terribly shallow that is, and missing so much of what's really good in life - I've realized how fleeting fame seems to be even for the truly famous. Even looking over the list of US Presidents (never mind lesser political figures like VPs, cabinet members, congressmen, etc.) as someone who has always been interested in history, I look at some names and think, "who?" or "I've heard the name, but know nothing about him." I mean, of course you can still read about them, but that even a US President can be largely forgotten as a household name within 250 years is really a stunning thing to think about; they are ultimately no more immortal than someone who only has their name in a genealogy database or on a grave marker.
Anyway, over the last couple of decades as an adult, besides realizing the obvious - how terribly shallow that is, and missing so much of what's really good in life - I've realized how fleeting fame seems to be even for the truly famous. Even looking over the list of US Presidents (never mind lesser political figures like VPs, cabinet members, congressmen, etc.) as someone who has always been interested in history, I look at some names and think, "who?" or "I've heard the name, but know nothing about him." I mean, of course you can still read about them, but that even a US President can be largely forgotten as a household name within 250 years is really a stunning thing to think about; they are ultimately no more immortal than someone who only has their name in a genealogy database or on a grave marker.